(S1) Episode 1: Broadplow Institute
by J. David Reed
Summary: When the Eleventh Doctor and Clara go to visit the Universe's most interesting Institute, they become locked in a mystery involving an empty asylum and some twisted nostalgia. Will they be able to figure out what, indeed, the hell is going on? Episode 1 of a short series.
1. Chapter 1: Enter the Institute

'Broadplow Institute!' he beamed, wandering up the gravel-floor drive. 'Home to the technologically insane since twenty-one, three-oh-eight!'

'Why are we here, Doc?'

'Because it's interesting, and odd. Never done this trip before. New one for me too. And you did say you wanted some new places, so here we are.'

Clara followed from the TARDIS, not entirely sure about this idea. 'An insane asylum, though? It's it, I dunno, dangerous?'

'Why would it be?'

'Well, you know, insane?'

'Not like you to be cautious.'

'Hmm,' Clara hummed as she hopped along behind his striding steps. 'So what is 'technologically insane' anyway?'

'Oh covers a few things really. Internet addiction was the most common, but there have been a few advances in the last, ooh, nineteen thousand years. Cyborgs are just coming back into fashion, they're retro, you know!'

'So, that's it?'

'Well, not all. There are people who are convinced they're computer programs, programs that think they're people, and everything in-between.'

They strode up to the large, oak doors. 'Very nineteenth-century,' Clara chimed.

'Yes, well, some things never go out of fashion.' The Doctor knocked on the doors, granting them a booming echo. 'Well that sounds...'

'Empty?'

'Very empty, hello?!' he yelled. He knocked again. 'HELLO?!'

'So, it's an abandoned asylum?'

'Institute, and it shouldn't be...' he observed the door, sonic in hand. He scanned it and checked the readout on the device. 'No deadlock. Says it's open, but...' He pushed on the door, not able to budge it even a touch. 'But...'

'Scan it again!'

He scanned the door again, this time more focused and slow. 'There's a bubble-lock. Rare, very rare... and strong. Should have seen it. There's interference.'

'Is this going to be another case of 'let's go somewhere' turned 'we have to save this disaster that no-one else seems to have noticed!'

'I suppose so...' the door cracked open a sliver and the Doctor rammed his shoulder into the door, only to bounce off. 'That really hurt...'

'Oh move over,' Clara said, pushing him out the way. She looked at the door, up and down, as though it were an old enemy. She smiled and planted her foot, as hard as she could next to the lock she could see.

Bouncing her off, the doors didn't budge.

She looked a little closer, at the hinges.

'Ooohh...' she nodded. Grabbing the handle, she pulled on the oak giants, swinging them outwards. 'It's a pull door!'

The Doctor looked to his TARDIS. 'Never got the hang of that...'

Clara stepped in first, followed by the Doctor, who warned her not to run off.

The building was insanely huge. Bigger inside than it had looked outside, but that might just be an illusion. To Clara, it resembled a theatre hall she had been in once, on a trip to France. It was grand and royal, but silver, cold. It felt, for the oddest reasons, hollow. Empty.

There were, of course, no people. No signs of a revolution by the people on the establishment, nor did it look like they had shut down - it was just empty.

'Broadplow was infamous when they opened it,' the Doctor said, scanning the area. He seemed to think it was safe. 'Subjects of all races, species, variations were treated in the same respects. And it was a case-by-case admittance, no 'standard procedure'. If you had an addiction to the internet, there were therapy sessions. Faulty-thinking and G.T.D were brand-new diagnoses because of this place. Technology had started to rule the world, what with i-Pads and touch-screens and interfaces. Moved into developments of teleports, low-grav fields, super-food. Things changed, Clara. So did mental illness.'

'I had a friend who was schizophrenic when I was a teenager,' she remembered. 'It was awful. He used to tell me she could see people following her friends around, and no-one would notice but him.'

'How is he nowadays? There are lots of forms of schizophrenia. He could get the right help.'

'He killed himself,' Clara said. 'Last year of secondary school. He just didn't show up. I went to the funeral.'

'What was his name?'

'James Correy,' she said, with a small, sad smile. 'Bless him.'

'I'm sorry.'

'It's okay, Doctor. Long time ago. He's probably happier now. He was never happy alive, I guess. Can we move on?'

'Yes, yes of course.' The Doctor identified the front desk, and jumped over it.

'This place is really fancy for a mental hospital.'

'Not just for mental illness, Clara,' he said. 'This place was on the map. Made waves in the meta-media. It became somewhat of a tourist attraction.'

'Is that why you brought me here? To look at these people like they were in a zoo?'

'Not at all, Clara. I was intending on showing you a very old friend of mine, someone I'm trying to find in these files... A-ha!' He pulled up a tiny, black rectangle, half the size of his thumb. 'Life-long chips. They get these implanted upon admittance. They trace brain activity, heart rates, vital signs. The usual.'

'Implanted?'

'Well, it's like a pin. You wear in behind your ear, and you just forget about it. They itch a bit, mind,'

Clara looked up into the room, it's grey grandure confusing her. 'So they built this place to impress people?'

'Basically, this bit, yeah. The function rooms are a bit more, well, functional. Less showy.'

'I thought you'd never been here before?'

'I haven't, but I've read plenty of brochures!' The Doctor pressed a button under the desk and a door opened to Clara's left. 'Power's still up. Wherever they went, and whatever was locking us out, it happened recently... maybe that's why she brought us here...'

''She'? 'She' who?'

'The TARDIS, she brought us to this exact time. She does it sometimes. I mean, I was aimed for a hundred years ago, so she must have known something was up.'

Leaping over the desk, the Doctor lead Clara through the door into a long corridor, along which there must have been hundreds of open doors.

'Oh,' the Doctor said.

'Oh?'

'Oh. They got out. They're all out.'

'I thought that was obvious,' Clara smiled.

'No but all of them. This place, it is high security. Yeah, they do touristy things, but that's just because they have stupidly good security. There's no fail-safe, no 'open-all-doors' button. Whatever did they, they went through the wiring for each door. Without being caught. Or hurt.'

'Hurt?'

'Well, some of the patients here would have been dangerous. A small amount, yes, but there are always some.'

Clara looked at the multitudes of doors. 'If this place was locked, where did they go?'

'It wouldn't have been locked at the time,' the Doctor said. 'My worry is, why didn't any of the staff stop them?'

They heard a slam from behind them. Turning, they saw that the front, oak doors that they'd come in through were shut.

'Oh,' he said.

'Did they close on their own?'

'No,' he said. 'Which means we're not alone.'


	2. Chapter 2: Locked

'Not alone?' Clara looked at him, somewhere between angry, scared and annoyed. 'What do you mean 'not alone'?'

'Well, like, there's probably someone else here. I mean, it was a full building not long ago, seeing as the power's still on. Whatever happened, maybe someone stuck around.'

The Doctor moved to inspect one of the doors more closely. It was basically a metal slab on mechanised hinges, but he wasn't looking at that. He was looking at the small plate on the door, where Clara assumed there would be a door handle of some kind.

It was a black, rectangular plate with four blue circles on. The Doctor pressed three of the circles at once and moved them around the fourth. There was a beep.

'It's a system I know,' he said smiling. 'That's good, means I should be able to hack into it when we get to the data core.'

'Data core?'

'Computing mother-load. It'll have all the records of this place since the first day it was adapted into Broadplow. Including how these doors were opened.'

'So we find the core, we learn how it was done?'

'Yes.'

'But not why. Or by whom.'

'No.'

'So how do we find those things out, exactly?'

'We deduct!' The Doctor bounced up from his crouching position and looked at Clara. He face was unusually serious. 'We should turn back.'

'What? Why?'

'Because, if this thing, whatever it was that closed that door had the ability to do so from the start. That bubble lock wasn't as difficult to open as it should have been.'

'You're saying we were let in.'

'It's a trap, Clara. Something wanted us here,' he looked at the oak doors. 'We should concentrate our efforts on getting out.'

'But what about the patients?'

'Not much we can do, they're gone. Maybe dead. Probably dead, actually. Things in the Universe aren't as kind as you and I, Clara.'

'I've seen that, Doc. What I never want to see is you walking away from something like this.'

'Then I won't, but you have to. Clara you are in danger-'

'So are you.'

'I've lost too many people because I didn't take precautions like this.'

'I'm not going running off. I'm not going to leave this, either. And I know you won't.'

'Clara, if this is a trap, set especially for me, then we have no idea what is being planned. This could be a set-up, to get me here. To hurt me. Or to hurt you.'

'Why hurt me? I'm just innocent-little-Clara!'

'Don't you be diminishing yourself. For all we know it could have technology we haven't even thought of. This is the two-hundred and fourteenth century!'

'Doctor,' Clara saw something behind him, in the hall.

'Yes?'

'Look,' she pointed.

As the Doctor turned, he saw the young girl, stood silently. Watching. She was maybe six, human, in a small dress.

'Hello...' the Doctor's caution unnerved Clara. 'How've you been?'

The girl flickered, as though she were a mere projection. She was gone.

'What was that?' Clara stared at where she had been. 'Is that little girl okay?'

'No idea,' the Doctor said. 'But it was just an image. Projected in front of us, probably to unnerve us. Why would it want us scared?'

'Maybe it needs us scared. Panicking?'

'Maybe,' the Doctor looked up. 'Do you know who that was, Clara?'

'No.'

'It was you. As a child. You don't remember the dress?'

'How the hell do you remember that?'

'I'm Santa,' he smirked. 'I just know everything, okay?'

'That's kinda creepy, Doc.'

'There are no visible ways to send an image like that with light,' he said, changing the subject. 'So maybe...' he got out his sonic screwdriver and swept the area. 'Oh my!'

'What?'

'Nanomites.' He clicked his fingers, and his hand seemed to explode into a bright, golden light. 'Tiny machines, typically used in places like this during the fiftieth to the sixtieth century.'

'What do they do?'

'Heal.'

'So they're good?'

'Not always...' The Doctor had a chilling memory of the gas-mask child. 'Poor boy.'

'Why would they be here though? If they were from thousands of years ago?'

'I'm not sure. No idea, actually. The technology is out-dated, by far. These are the exact model I met back in World War Two.'

'You met tiny doctor-robots in World War Two?'

'I met lots of things in World War Two. Including Hitler.'

'Seriously?'

'My friend put him in a cupboard.'

'That's mad.'

'Hello, my name's the Doctor. Nice to meet you.'

'Oh shut up,' she laughed. Her laughter stopped when she saw another figure back in the corridor. 'Hello?'

The Doctor spun round to look, and saw a young boy, in his teens. His eyes were blood-shot and his hair mank with sweat. 'I don't know him.'

'I do,' she said, sadness hollowing her voice. 'James?'

The Doctor looked at her, then to the apparition. 'It's just an image, Clara.'

'How can it be?'

James' projection flickered. 'It's light, nothing else. Just a picture, an image, designed to scare you.'

'How can they know about him?' she asked, looking at the Doctor. 'How the hell do they know?!'

'You talked about him. This is a centre for creatures too good at technology to be sane. They probably just uber-googled you.'

'That's sick.'

'That's the entertainment of the future, Clara.'

James disappeared in a flicker.

'I don't understand,' she said, looking at him. 'Why is this happening?'

'I don't know. From what I can tell, this place is fine. History says it's open for another two hundred years! No riots, no security breaches. It goes completely smoothly until another place opens up and they move the patients there instead, leaving this place as a tourist attraction.'

'Well, it's not open, is it?! It's locked and empty and abandoned. And telepathic.'

'It's just fishing for information, something to use against you. Against us. For whatever reason.'

'Are we still trying to get out, then?'

'Absolutely,' the Doctor said. 'Via the data core. We need to see what happened. Understand this time-defying establishment.'

The two of them continued down the corridor, the end of which greeted them with another metal-slab door, however this one had a circular wheel-handle.

'Do we spin?' Clara asked.

'I think we spin.' He spun the wheel and the door clicked open, letting the Doctor push through.

To Clara's confusion, and the Doctor's horror/joy, the door lead them into the console room of the TARDIS, but an older version. The first version it had ever been.

The walls were a tinted grey, shining in the warm light. The console was jaded and sharp, as it always had been.

'This really can't be here,' the Doctor said. 'Like really, really... no!' He allowed himself a nostalgic smile, and closed the door.

'We are we back out here?' Clara asked. 'What was that place?'

'It was an old version of the TARDIS. Very old. The default setting of the type-40. And I'm just trying something out...'

He spun the wheel again, this time opening it to find a much darker scene of the next corridor of the facility. 'There we are!'

'This is really weird,' Clara said.

'I know!'


	3. Chapter 3: Familiar Faces

Clara and the Doctor slowly treaded down the corridor, which shrouded them in shadows, and had no doors. It was just a straight, seemingly unending line of grey, metal wall. The Doctor used the small light of the sonic screwdriver to light the way.

_Should have remembered the torch_, he thought to himself.

'We're missing something,' the Doctor said.

'We're missing a lot,' Clara replied. 'This place makes no sense. Why just have a blank corridor? 'And how could it just change like that?'

'Whatever's going on, I need to get to that data core.'

After a moment of silent walking, Clara asked 'Doctor, who was that 'old friend' you mentioned?'

'I shouldn't say.'

'Why not?'

'Because whoever's listening in was able to use your past against you. God know what they'll find with me.'

'Oh, Doctor Doctor,' came a voice from up ahead. 'We've found everything.'

'I know that voice...' he squinted into the darkness. There was no-one there that he could see, but that voice, that sick joy, he knew it from somewhere. 'Who are you?'

'Oh, you don't remember? But we had so much in common!'

'No,' he said, thinking. 'Really? Of everyone they could have brought up from the dead, it was you?'

'Well,' the Master's voice chuckled. 'I am so dashingly handsome. Perhap they needed some sex-appeal.'

'Who is it? Someone you know?' Clara asked.

'Oh yes,' he said. 'A man who should be dead. I assume you're little more than a projection? A beam of light? A sound recording?'

'You have no idea!' Before them, in a black suit, his hair blonde and sweaty, stood the Master. He grinned.

'You said 'we', 'we' who?'

'We are everyone, Doctor!'

'Everyone?'

'Plotting your journeys in the TARDIS is exceptionally easy, you know. Even more so when you have the TARDIS in your possession.'

'My TARDIS? _My_ TARDIS?!'

'_Your_ TARDIS, yes. Calm down, sweetie. She's just fine. But her logs have been thoroughly hacked and extrapolated. Oh, by the way, if you're planning on going to the data core, you might want to take three steps forwards, hit the lever on the wall and see what happens. Or do you not trust your own imagination?'

The Master cackled, his laugh echoing off the metal walls, before disappearing into the dark.

'Wait!' The Doctor lunged forwards, but he was gone. He doubted he was ever more than light anyway, but hey.

Looking to his left, he saw the lever he assumed the Master was talking about.

'Do we pull it?' Clara asked. 'I don't think we should pull it.'

'We don't pull,' the Doctor said. 'These people have my TARDIS. If they're hacking into it's logs, God know what else they're getting into.'

'Why, got something to hide?' Clara asked with a smile.

'How can you be joking at a time like this?! With moving rooms and Master and little creepy girls!'

'Hey!'

'Oh. Sorry.'

'This is what we do, Doc. I'm okay with that.'

'Yes, but usually there's more running and less creepy hallways and dead teenagers named James.'

'I admit, it is an oddity,' she said, nodding. She smiled. 'I kinda want to pull it now.'

'_Why_?'

'Well, I know you feel it too, so don't even try and resist it.'

'Are you trying to get us killed?'

'Or worse, _expelled_?' she laughed.

'You are a nightmare.'

'Just pull it.'

'Fine.' The Doctor smacked down the lever, and the floor gave out underneath them.

With a scream and a grope, Clara managed to cling onto the edge of the hole, with the Doctor hanging onto her leg.

'Claraaaaaa!'

'Hold on!'

'I _am_!'

He slipped an inch or two, sliding down her legs.

'Doctor?!' Clara looked down at him, barely able to keep hold of the edge; it was a thin, metal floor, not giving her much friction to keep hold of.

'I think I can see the floor,' he said, looking down. There was a dim light.

'This place has been playing mind-tricks with us all along, and you want to trust a floor you can barely see?'

'Maybe,' he admitted. 'Not much choice, really. Okay, on three, I'm going to let go.'

'Doctor-'

'One.'

'Don't do it.'

'Two!'

'Seriously?'

'Three!' He released his grasp, but just as he did so the light switched off. Clara got a glimpse of his terrified long face before the darkness took him.

Clara, now with substantially less weight on her legs, opted to try and get back up. She tried to swing her legs up, but the corridor and hole were both too narrow to get any swing. Instead, she shuffled to one side and, with a painful stretch, managed to grab hold of the lever and use it to pull herself up enough to get her feet on solid ground.

Now, without a light, the corridor was almost completely black. With a stroke of genius, she remembered her phone was in her jacket pocket, and, clicking it on, it gave her at least a little light to work with.

After maybe thirty metres, she met a fork-split in the path. Three options. The middle seemed to go straight on. The left had a ladder that went upwards, the right one that went downwards.

Assuming it would be easier to navigate this place with a Time-Lord in tow, she decided to go down. Right it was.

As she moved to the ladder, however, her phone flashed over a face, in the wall. It was James.

Screaming, Clara recoiled, threatening the wall-face with karate-trained hands.

The face laughed at her.

Three more appeared, all around her. Laughing. Mocking. She could stand the laughing, she supposed. As long as she didn't let it get to her. Someone was playing tricks on her, trying to scare her off.

That meant she was going the right way!

She hopped down the ladder, into a tiny space that was barely big enough to fit her in. The faces ceased their laughing, and, in what Clara could have described as a cruel attempt to freak her out they began to scream at her. No maye ten faces were above her, and they grew out of the walls in the small downward tunnel. A thousand copies of James' face, all screaming at her.

**All the way down.**


	4. Chapter 4: The Light

The drop was farther than he had expected. Maybe he had broken something. His leg hurt like hell.

Lifting his head, the Doctor tried to open his eyes, but the light of the room nearly blinded him. It scorched his eyes, physically forcing his head back down.

He covered his eyes with his hands, in an almost primal attempt to get rid of the light, feeling it burning in him.

'Aaahhrgh!' he screeched, unable to create speech. HE managed to calm himself down, feeling the burning calm. 'Okay, okay.'

He slowly stood, untrusting of his surroundings. Even with his eyes closed, he had the blurred, pink light pouring through his eyelids. It was inescapable.

'Doctor?' a voice came.

His heart dropped. 'No,' he whispered. He couldn't open his eyes, as much as he might want to.

'Doctor?' she asked, louder this time. He could almost feel her there. 'Is it too bright?' her voice was right, but the words weren't hers. It was like listening to a song out of tempo. Something didn't fit.

'Rose?' he asked, reaching out to touch her. His hands didn't meet anything.

The pink light in his eyes became faint, leaving until he became confident he could open his eyes. He didn't anyway.

He couldn't look at her.

It's an illusion. All of it, an illusion. Playing tricks with light, projections, putting imaged in his head. It's not real. She's not real.

'Please,' she said, her voice sounding far too much like the way he remembered it.

'You're not real,' he said. His voice cracked. 'You're not real.'

'Yeah, she said. 'I know. It's strange. Like I can see inside your head. Why can I do that?'

'Rose, you need to go. I need to go. You're not real. You're in a parallel universe, with the Doctor-Donna, and you're there. Not here. You have a new baby brother and Mickey and...'

'I know, Doctor.' She said. She sounded so sad.

The Doctor opened his eyes, and saw her, as he had first met her. She was wearing that hoodie, her eyes looking at him with fear. 'What's going on?' he asked. 'How are you here? How do you know these things?'

'You, Doctor. You gave me a look inside your head, and now I'm feeding with it.'

'You're not Rose.'

'No, I'm not. I'm not anyone. I'm everyone. Every living thing that was in this asylum, they are me. And they want it.'

'Why, though, why would you do this?'

She stared at him, using Rose's body as a vessel, to make him feel the guilt and regret he always had in his heart. To bring it forward. 'To feel.'

'And, most importantly, and this really is the kicker: why would you tell me?'

'Because you are not different, Doctor. You are not going to leave. I shall convince you to become me, where you can live in any memory. And I will do the same to your friend, Clara. The girl you are so obsessed with. You will become us.'

'Convince me? To become a part of you. Don't mean to be rude, but don't ever believe that you can make me change my mind. I will reduce you to what you are. Whatever you are.'

'I am the light,' it said. It's voice wasn't Rose's anymore. It was a thousand voices. 'I am the light in the tunnel after death. I am the first blink of birth. I am light and memory and knowledge and God and faith and pain.'

'Yeah?' he looked at her face, the face he had known so well, now staring at him with a power that didn't belong in her. 'Well I'm the Doctor. And I have a little suggestion for you, Light.'

'You cannot have thought that I do not see. You have no advice.'

'Run.'

'What?'

'Run. For your deluded life. Because you are not more powerful than me. You've never met anything like me before. I will do something you might have forgotten.'

'You cannot. I am everything.'

'You are ill! You are just as insane as the creature you convinced. You are arrogant and overconfident and powerless!' the Doctor preached, arms outstretched. The Light began to evolve from Rose, pouring from her eyes and mouth. 'You are everything I loathe.'

'You have described yourself, Doctor,' it said in a calmer tone. 'We seen into your head. I can explore your memories. If you will not become me, I will become you. We will convince your thoughts to be ours. Join the Light.'

The Doctor, without a further thought, ran straight into the Light, a move he knew it hadn't anticipated. Instead of welcome him or try to 'join' him, it swerved, distorting the remnants of Rose's flesh body. Twisted arches of Light tore out of her, and, in one last look, the Doctor saw her face, anger and rage, and knew that somewhere, she was living a life, exactly the opposite of what he saw.

Somewhere, she was happy.

He ran, behind the creature, to an archway he had seen in it's light, never stopping. Bounding round corners, into dark hallways he knew this creature had complete control over, he searched for Clara. It was after her, and it seemed unstoppable. He would never say it to it's face, of course, but he was scared. Maybe it already knew. It seemed to be telepathic, after all.

He bounded around the asylum, from empty corridors to dead-end rooms, with absolutely no plan of where he was heading. He hoped either towards Clara or the Data core.

He thought about the room he had just been in; it had been some kind of hall, a larger room. Somewhere the Light could hide out, waiting for wandering tourists.

Maybe a storage room? It wasn't the data core, he knew that. There was no place for information storage, no files, no cyber-space.

The Light seemed to be able to control matter, though. It changed the corridor into a copy of the old TARDIS console, and making those people appear like that. How was it doing it?

He eventually cascaded down a steel corridor, escaping into the original main hall, which was still held in an eerie soft blue glow, from the over-hanging lights.

There was nowhere else to go. He had to assume that the Light was following him, so he couldn't go back the way he'd come, and the only other way was the identical corridor directly across. He knew that the Light would just follow him, and this place was the best idea he had.

'Come on then,' he whispered to himself, looking down into the tube he'd escaped from, staring into the darkness. 'Come and get me.'

He heard steps down the way, coming towards him.

'Doctor?' he heard. It was Clara's voice. for a moment, he was going to move forwards, go to meet her. But he knew that the Light was able to change it's form. It was able to create shapes and change rooms and 'convince' mentally unstable geniuses into joining it's being. It could be anything. 'Doctor? Is that you?'

And the Light had been down that way, coming after him. But would it become her? Had it already got her? Had it 'convinced' Clara to become one with the light?

'Clara?' he shouted back, daring to believe in her.

She ran towards him, smiling. 'I thought I'd lost you!'

'You did, nearly.'

'Where did you drop to?'

'A dark room with a bright light, where have you been?'

'Looking for you!'

'Is that right?'

'Did you find anything?'

'Sort of. Big bright thing, thinks it's a God, I laughed at it and shouted a bit, then I ran.'

'Where is it now?'

'Anywhere,' he said, looking at her. 'Anyone.'

She realised what he meant. He didn't believe it was her. 'Right.'

'Tell me something only you would know,'

'Why?'

'So I know it's you. It can't read your mind,' he lied. 'Tell me something true.'

Clara looked at him, scared. 'I don't know what to say,' she said. If it was her, she would tell him something incredibly personal. If not, it wouldn't bother. It can read minds, see memories, but it has to make an effort to feel. It doesn't have emotions attached to memories. It would say anything. She would say something important.

'Anything,' he said.

Clara watched him, trying to find some way to convince him of who she was.

It all became very complicated when there were more footsteps, and another Clara stepped out of the dark metal hole. 'Hello?'

'Hmm,' the Doctor hummed, looking at them both. 'Well, this is interesting.'


	5. Chapter 5: Any Happy Little Thought?

The two Claras stood before him, watching him, and then each other, almost to mirror-image perfection. He couldn't distinguish through mannerisms which was which. Who was real.

The first Clara, who had climbed out of the darkness first, seemed in no way different to the second. For all he knew they could both be fake, and this is yet another mind trick to make him disorientated and confused.

He started to wonder what the purpose of this grand scheme was.

'The most important leaf in human history,' the first said. 'The one that lead to my parents meeting. It's what she called it, my mum.'

'Why is she saying that?' the other Clara said. 'Is that thing inside my head, making a copy?'

'I'm not sure what to say...'

'Stop being me!'

'Stop pretending you're real!'

'I am real!'

The two bickered at each other, until they both noticed how the Doctor was watching them. Not with fear, not with concern. For the first time, he looked at Clara with suspicion. She was this impossible girl, who could die and come back in an entirely new life. Who knows what secrets she's hiding. Who knows what secrets the Light has got to.

'Doctor?' the both said, looking at him.

'There is a question,' he said. 'A question that might unlock a very curious encounter. Something that might change my fate, and your fate. One simple little thing that only one of you will be able to answer.' He took his sonic screwdriver out. Both Clara's took a step backwards. 'What,' he said. 'Is in my left pocket?'

The two looked dumbstruck.

'You were asking me to name something important a minute ago,' the first Clara said.

'Yes, well, answer this one. Because one of you, or both of you, imitated someone you really shouldn't have. You've been toying with me and my friend, using my past to wind me like a spinning top and I am sick to death of you!' his voice escalated in such a way that neither of them had heard before. 'So, what's in my pocket?'

He tapped the pocket of his jacket teasingly.

Both Claras set to work on racking their memories. One closed her eyes, while the other stared at her shoes.

Maybe a minute passed, with both trying to figure it out, or think of a reasonable guess.

He held his trusty sonic in-hand, expecting a response any time soon.

'I think...' one said eventually. 'Is it that life-long chip?'

'Let's have a look, shall we?' The Doctor pulled, from his pocket, the tiny rectangle device. The Clara who had answered looked pleased with herself, whilst the other looked terrified.

The Doctor looked at the one who had answered and raised his sonic to her, his face stony and harsh. He ignited the sonic, bursting it into life, contrasting against the dead silence of the institute. The Clara screamed, flickered, and disappeared.

He turned to the other. 'Only had one shot, it'll see it coming next time.'

'You knew it was her?'

'Eventually.'

'How?'

'Call it me being a screaming genius.'

'I would, but I'm not to lie.'

'Oi!' he looked at her, smiling. 'She answered about something that was so tiny, so insignificant, you wouldn't have remembered. But a computer can store data and just rifle through it. She just had to look back through logs, camera footage, whatever, and see me putting it in my left pocket.'

'That's a bit of a risk.'

'It worked, didn't it?'

'I suppose.'

'Then don't knock it!' He shrugged his shoulders, preparing to move his lanky legs into action. 'On with the search!'

'To find what, exactly?'

He waved the chip. 'To find Adam!'

'Adam? Who's Adam?'

'An idiot, but he ended up here. I was going to reconcile with him.'

'Over what?'

'Kicking him out.'

The two moved to the desk, diving behind it again to search for anything helpful. They didn't have high hopes.

'What did he do to get kicked out?'

'Fiddled with technology beyond his time, got an implant in his forehead, went a little mental. Invented a one-stop time jump, came here and checked in. Smartest thing he ever did.'

'You didn't like him.'

'The person I was back then, I didn't like a lot of people,'

'Why?'

'Born in battle, lots of rage. I met someone, she helped me... but she's gone. Gone now.'

Clara looked at him with some degree of pity, mixed with curiosity. 'What was her name?' she asked. He stood up to meet her.

'Her name was Rose.' He smiled softly. 'I haven't seen her in a while. Not really.'

'She was important?'

'Oh yes...' he coughed. 'She was important. Clara noticed tears in his eyes, brought on by the guilt that was slowly crushing.

'Did you love her?'

He didn't respond. He couldn't. Not now. Not after seeing her like that. 'This place,' he said. 'It's triggered emotionally weighted memories. For me, it's you, Rose, the old TARDIS, the Master. For you, James. It's an emotional deathtrap.'

'And you think that's significant.'

'I think it's crucial. It told me it needs to feel. It's doing this to feel. And it's in some way psychic, so I think it's getting something out of us. Making us feel so it can.' He stood up. 'A creature built of humans, but it has no ability to feel human emotions. There's still something we're missing, though.'

'How this all started.'

'Exactly!'

'So what now?'

'Now,' he said. 'We go through there, look at it in the eye, and we use the plan.'

'What plan?'

'The genius, clever plan I have.'

'So you have a plan.'

'Absolutely, you should hear it some time, it's great.'

'What's the plan?'

'Brilliant.'

'But what do we _do_?'

'Anything. That's why it's brilliant. The plan isn't ours. It's the Light's. It's going to do something that we can't do anything about.'

'I'm failing to see how this is good.'

'It's going to get us, and when it doe, we are going to show it the good in people. It's only gaining negative energy at the minute, fear, anger, sadness. It's only shown me a sliver of happiness, quickly followed by guilt. We need to show it happiness. When it captures you, let it, and focus your mind. Keep the happiest memory you can think of in your head. It can be anything.'

'Just happy?'

'Just happy. Think for a moment.'

She closed her eyes, bringing to mind a thousand thoughts, thinking. Remembering. 'Got it,' she whispered to the Doctor.

'Good,' he said. 'Because it's here.'


	6. Chapter 6: Adam

Turning to the cold, dark doorway that lead down the corridor they had taken earlier, Clara and the Doctor could just about make out, down in the depths of pitch black absence, a glimmer of light.

'That's it?' Clara asked.

'That's it. The Light. Remember what I said. You need to focus on your memory, keep it in your head.'

'Will that work?'

'I think so.'

'We're doing this on 'I think so'?'

'Yeah. Why? Got a problem?'

'Not at all.'

'Great.'

Their nervous conversation brought them to look at eachother, both braced for the Light to come and 'convince' them.

As it approached, the Doctor and Clara observed it's transformation. It's light seemed to compact, creating one solid shape. It was nearly human, with arms and legs and a distinguishable head, but it had no fingers, just solid hands, and no facial features. It was blank, and cold.

'You two are interesting,' it said.

'You're not too boring yourself,' the Doctor retorted. He held the life-long chip up in his hand. The Light cocked its head, curious.

'Did that belong to one of us?'

'Yes,' the Doctor said. 'One of you who knows me. Adam, you in there?'

'Adam was convinced.'

'Yeah, well, he would have been. I've got a question, though. How exactly do you go about convincing people?'

'We do not need to explain to you.'

'I'd appreciate it massively though,' he said, teasing it. 'Oh, and one more thing, why the pronoun-malfunction, eh? One minute it's 'I', the next it's 'we', where's the continuity?'

'I do not understand.'

'No, no you don't,' he said. 'But a person would. You don't flow. You're not organic. What are you then, Light? are you a program that gained sentience? A virus with a body? Or... oh.'

'Oh?' Clara asked.

'Oh. Oh that's clever.'

'Is it?'

'It's using the nanogenes. The tiny robots, nano-mites, little miniature doctors and nurses. Old technology. It's not a creature. iI's thousands of malfunctioning robots.'

'You are wrong,' it said, with the first hint of any emotion he'd heard come from it since they were in that pit together.

'No, I'm not. I'm very clever too, you see. So what, how did you come here? You're old-school tech, you shouldn't even exist anymore. It's like having a typewriter in a 50th century school. You're out-dated.'

'We were brought here with a girl.'

'A girl?'

'She brought us to show to her father.'

'A science project?'

'We were given the objective to make him feel.'

'He was insane?' Clara asked. 'So a little girl from the future made a few thousand robots and gave them her own idea, to try and cheer up her dad?'

'And they went too far,' the Doctor finished. 'I've seen it before, nanogenes going into overdrive, but this? Creating it's own, physical swarm-being, that's a new one.'

'We are not a swarm,' it said. The light pulled away around where the face was, revealing to Clara and the Doctor the face of a middle-aged man underneath, human, but with ridges in his forehead.

'Galvien,' the Doctor said. 'That species, it's called Galvien. A sub-species of human, with ridges like that all over the body, a kind of mutation in the bone which developed after cross-species breeding.'

'You're like a poke-dex for aliens, you are,' Clara said, smiling at him.

'I am a suit for father. We were brought to protect him and help him feel.'

'So you, what, adopted a way of stealing other people's minds, how's that?'

'Another person of the institute found us when we were merely swarm. Gave us new intelligence. Taught us how to take emotions and transfer them. It involves choice, which is why we must convince you.'

'We have to say yes, right?'

'Wrong. We have to feel you are convinced.

'Psychic?' Clara asked. The Doctor looked at her. 'What, like, it can just tell when you are convinced that it's right even when you say no?'

'Absolutely,' the Light said, the man's face still, as though asleep. The Light pulled back over it, snatching him away.

The Doctor put his hand into his pocket. 'But it's more than that, you could imitate people. Take memories and create images out of them, how did you do that?'

'We did not.'

'You didn't?'

'No.'

The Doctor looked surprised. 'Okay... But with Rose, down in the room?'

'It is difficult, but we can. But we did not impersonate the others. Not directly.'

'So who did?'

'The Dark.'

'The 'Dark'?'

'We are the Light. We protect our father, and we bring him emotion. The Dark steals memories and uses it to create emotions for us.'

'So you work together?'

'We take advantage of what it does, but we are not in allegiance.'

'So who is the Dark?'

'Me.' A voice from behind the Doctor. The Doctor and Clara turned on their heels to see it, but there was nothing there.

'What are you?' Clara shouted.

'I am the Dark. And the Light. I am the people of Broadplow Institute.'

'What did you do to them?'

'I installed them,' the voice rang down from the ceiling, as though coming from everywhere. 'We are all part of the same device. Those who were to stay, will stay forever.'

'And those who were just passing through?'

'Will be convinced.'

'Convinced of what?'

'That they saw nothing,' it said, with almost a chuckle in it's voice. It sounded neither male nor female, with hundreds of vocal tones hidden in it's words. 'They feed us, then they move on.'

'What happened between you and the Light?'

'It is an extension. A mere blip. A distraction, which is more noticeable than I. It protects without question, and I can feed it information to use against the likes of you.'

'You told it to become Rose?'

'I did.'

'Then it's you who is inside my head.'

'If I wanted to, I could take everything. For now, I have had snippets of your strongest memories, the ones which carry the most weight. The most guilt.'

'Then why don't you?'

'Because I remember you, Doctor.'

'You remember me?'

From nowhere, a boy appeared on the floor, in a small ball. He stood, looking into the Doctor's eyes.

Adam.

'I remember.'


	7. Chapter 7: The Modern Freakshow

Adam stood, squaring up to the Doctor. 'Do you have any idea what it was like for me?'

'You got the implan on your own accord, you did it to yourself.'

'No Doctor, this is on your head!'

The Doctor held back a small laugh. He didn't know why, but even now, after seeing everything that Adam had done, he couldn't help but see him as unthreatening, trying to be part of something bigger than himself.

'After I came here,' he continued. 'I thought I'd be safe. I thought I'd protect myself from people back on Earth, not being exposed to them every day. I came here for isolation. Instead I was put on show.'

'The tourists?' Clara asked, looking at him. 'I said this place was like a zoo.'

'That's exactly what it was. We were put on show. the freak-show of the digital age. And then, all of a sudden, this girl turns up with nanogenes. Finally. Something I can use outside my cell. We weren't patients, Doctor we were inmates. You sentenced me to this.'

'What did you do, Adam?' he asked, a warning in the voice he held.

'I used what was at hand. I took the life-long chip out of my head. I used the spike-input in my forehead, and I downloaded all of the information they had on me. It's amazing, in this century everything is compatible, no matter how old or what age it's from. It was too easy to break into the Institute's security system after that. The nanogenes were next. I programmed them to create a monster that would scare the tourists. I made a whole back-story, too. That it was her the girl's father who couldn't feel, so it channelled the emotions of the scared, weak little tourists. They bought it.'

'Why though? What was the point?'

'Information, Doctor. Information is everything. I had my own little kingdom here, and using the life-long chips, I could control the patients. Had them kill the people working here.'

'You turned an asylum into a feeding ground.'

'I did. And when they were gone, I used the patients as bait. Used their deaths as excuses for their family members to come. To mourn.'

'Because it wasn't all a lie about the emotions, was it?' Clara asked.

'How would you know, you pathetic little _human_.'

'Because you used it. You tried everything you could to break me, and the Doctor. But his mind was strong and you could only get the top layer of memories, right? So you do need them.'

'Oh, that's brilliant,' the Doctor whispered. 'That's just funny. It's pitiful more than anything!'

'What do you mean?' Adam asked, his face pale and cold.

'You've become more machine than human. You're a shadow of what you were, Adam.'

'I was never good enough. Not for you. Not for anyone. My mother hated me for what I did to myself. She saw me as a freak. I was laughed at.'

'So you became a killer.'

'So I took what was meant for me,' he said.

'But you were a coward,' the Doctor said. 'That was you. Fainting at the thought of action. You didn't have this in you.'

'Yes, well, I had help, Doctor. '

'Help? Help to what?'

'Help to take this place as my own. To have the Light carry out my every whim, terrifying those who wandered in. And then the TARDIS arrived.'

'And you realised that you could get a lot out of me,' the Doctor finished. 'Lots of rage in me. Lots of guilt.'

'Tasty,' Adam smiled.

The Doctor watched Adam, standing before them in the hall of his castle. 'I have control,' he said. 'I have absolute power, Doctor.'

'Yeah, and what are you gonna do about it?'

'I'll have him rip your throat out through your lungs.'

Behind the Doctor, the Light appeared. He took the Doctor by the arms, holding him up in the air. Adam walked up to him, smirking. 'Does that hurt?'

The Doctor cringed in the choke-hold the Light had him trapped in. He was going to suffocate.

Clara lunged at Adam, hitting him and taking him down, landing with a thump on the hard floor.

Adam tried to stand, but felt the world shaking under him. He was falling unconscious.

As he did, the Light dropped the Doctor and the nanogenes escaped, leaving possibly the last remaining patient of Broadplow Institute on the floor, asleep. Possibly dead.

The huge oak doors clicked and fell open, giving the Doctor a view of his Tardis, waiting for him.

They looked down at Adam, Clara climbing up. 'Is that it?'

'What do you mean?' The Doctor asked. 'He's still plugged into the system we need to get him far away from this place, to somewhere he can't hack or control...' the Doctor considered his options. 'Come on,' he said. 'You get his legs, we'll carry him into the TARDIS!'

'But... what if he wakes up? He can hack into it, can't he?'

'The TARDIS is much more complicated a system than this place,' he said, proud. 'He lied about that, too. Lied a lot.'

'What was he like, before this?'

'Oh, he was useless. Still is, really. Take away his wi-fi, and he's nothing. Just another twenty-something trying to be better than he is. Just another villain.'

'But he said he had help... Who do you think it was?'

'I have no idea,' the Doctor lied. He had some ideas. Some thoughts floating around. Nothing concrete or even likely,

They picked Adam up, dragging his rear along the ground, out the door and into the TARDIS control room. The Doctor remembered when the corridor had been masked to resemble the old console - that was how Adam remembered it.

They placed him down, and the Doctor got to work with taking Adam to the perfect location.

The TARDIS materialised.

'Is this the place?' Clara asked, leaving the TARDIS doors. 'This could be a bit cruel, you know.'

'Yeah, well, he killed a lot of people. He deserves cruel.'

'Do you really believe that?'

'Nope!'

Clara and the Doctor pulled Adam out onto the barren sand.

'How long do you think he'll last?'

'As long as he wants,' the Doctor said. 'This place is filled with food. Ready for hunting, collecting. Gathering.'

'I still think this is cruel.'

They took him next to a small tree, near which the forest started. It was strange, to Clara to see a forest so close to a dessert. To the Doctor, is was just another landscape. He could appreciate it's beauty once the job was done.

'I think here's good,' he said, putting Adam down softly. Clara dropped his legs.

'What now?'

'Now we go, on with the next task. The next adventure.'

'No more tourism, I think.'

'Possibly.'

The two boarded the TARDIS, flying off to explore new worlds and investigate new times.

Adam awoke on the sand, not a circuit board or wi-fi connection anywhere. He was lost.

'Adam,' came a voice.

'Sir?' Adam stood to attention, looking at his superior with fear.

'You failed.'

'Failed?'

'Your task was to use the Institute. Build a hoard of emotions.'

'I completed the task, sir.'

'No, no you didn't. There was an emotion you missed.'

'What was that?'

Adam's superior smiled. 'Joy.'

Adam nodded, accepting his mistake. He hadn't even looked up, before his eyes were robbed of light.

'Too much machine,' the man said, thinking. 'We need to re-evaluate our system.'

He disappeared as quick as he had come.


	8. Chapter 8: Dalek

'I feel like we shouldn't leave him,' Clara said. 'I mean, I know he killed those people, but shouldn't we take him to a prison or something?'

'If we did, he'd hack it. He's dangerous anywhere near technology.'

'So we just dropped him in the middle of nowhere?'

'Oh, he's somewhere.' The Doctor smiled. 'About half a mile into the forest, there are a group of creatures called the Mithli. Very friendly, they would welcome him gladly. they're very primitive, though. Nothing technological anywhere. The TARDIS translator seemed to still be working with him, so he'd be able to talk to them.'

'So this really is the best option?'

'I like to think so.'

'Should we go back?' Clara said. 'I still think like we should at least tell him the Mithli are there, so he can go. Give him a good-bye, Doctor.'

'Oh, I've had enough goodbyes, Clara. More than anyone. They're a pretty big part of me, actually. I don't plan on sending him any. He can work it out. He's clever enough to murder a building, then he's clever enough to survive with friendly creatures.'

Clara wasn't convinced, but knew the Doctor knew best. That if Adam was dangerous, which he was, then he should be kept away from everything possible.

'Doctor?'

'Yes!'

'...How did Adam read our minds? If he's able to hack technology then, okay, I get that, but _people_?'

The Doctor paused, thinking, and slammed the brakes on the TARDIS, pulling it back to the planet they had just left.

He stormed out of the TARDIS. 'We've been gone twenty seconds,' he said to Clara.

Adam's body was lying on the ground, but he had moved. They had put him on his back, and now he was slumped down, almost in a sitting position.

The Doctor crouched next to him, listening for breath. 'He's dead.'

'Dead?' Clara asked, shocked. She stared at him. 'How?'

'No idea,' the Doctor said. 'Whatever it was, it left no trace.' He stood up, looking down on Adam's cold corpse. 'We need to bury him.'

Clara emerged from the TARDIS holding a shovel. 'I got it,' she said.

'Where did you get that?'

'The garden.'

'What garden?'

'The garden in here!'

'I have a garden?'

'Uh-huh.' She threw it to him, and appeared with one of her own. 'Should we take him to the forest, in the dirt?'

'Yes,' he said bluntly. He was still examining. 'I don't understand. There's nothing. _Nothing_. People don't just die!'

'Maybe it was his help?'

'Help?'

'He said he had help, making him able to do this. If whatever help he got was, like, directing him, then maybe that's how he was psychic.'

'But what can make a human psychic?' The Doctor was whispering to himself, mumbling through his ideas.

'Doctor?'

He looked at Clara, standing. He nodded, and assisted her in digging a pit for Adam, on this alien planet.

Eventually, after having lowered Adam's body down with a canvas they found in the TARDIS, the Doctor and Clara stood over his grave, and decided to say some words. Clara went first.

'I only knew you half a day,' she said. 'And you terrify the hell out of me, Adam. You were a powerful creature. A powerful person. Human. You lived inside computers and technology, but you wanted to feel. To experience joy and hate and fear within your prison. that's very human, I think.' She sniffed back some tears. 'Bye Adam.'

The Doctor stepped forwards, allowing Clara to throw dirt down to Adam's wrapped-up body. 'You know, Adam, of all the people I expected to go insane after meeting me, you weren't high on the list.' He allowed himself a smile. 'You weren't good enough, you're right,' he said. 'I rejected you because you were a simple, human kid. You were young and innocent and naive, and look what I did to you. Yes, you murdered those people, and yes you ruined lives, but you did it, we're pretty sure at the orders of someone else. So I forgive you of that. Adam, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the way I dismissed you and left you somewhere with this technology you couldn't control. I'm sorry I didn't think of how I had effected you. I'm sorry for forgetting you. Forgive me, Adam.'

He stepped away, picked up some dirt, and tossed it in.

He got to filling in the grave alone, asking Clara to wait for him in the TARDIS.

'After what happened on Satellite 5, me and Rose explored, you know.' He told him. 'We saw so much. She saw the universe with me. I should have given you that chance more. Oh she loved it,' he smiled. 'She absolutely loved it. But, as ever, my past caught up with us and she was the one to pay.' He looked upwards, to the alien sky. Stars glowed upon the clouds, illuminating the darkening sky, turning it from blue to pink, to black. 'You became the past that came back, I suppose,' he said. 'I said I wouldn't give you a goodbye, but I will.'

The dirt of the grave slowly grew, coming up to him. Adam was buried under.

The Doctor silently filled the rest of grave in, left Adam's grave by planting a tree, native to the planet, as his headstone.

The TARDIS felt cold, and, even though it had been hours, Clara was waiting for him by the console.

'How're you feeling?' she asked.

'Like I need rest,' he said. 'I suggest you do the same. Go on, get some rest.'

'Yup,' she nodded. She didn't like him trying to dismiss her like that, but she knew the feeling of seeing someone who meant anything, _anything_, to you, become engulfed by dirt. She left to go to bed, the Doctor leaning against the console.

'Is this how they turn out?' he said. He was half talking to the TARDIS, half to himself. 'Is this what I do to them?' He looked up to the pillar of light, glowing at him. 'Do I ruin these people? My friends. These brave, brave civilians. I make them fighters. Warriors.' He thought of Rose; 'Protectors.' Martha; 'War-zone Doctors.' Donna; 'Mental wrecks.' Amy; 'Lost.' Rory; 'Responsible.'

And now Clara. And that's only since the war. The war that ruined his mind and trashed his soul.

Clara; 'Dalek.'


End file.
